The rickety floorboards creaked underfoot as they walked down the narrow hall. The slats covering the grimy windows left long, trailing shadows on the peeling paint. The sun was low on the horizon, the night’s fist clenching over the barren, purple-toned landscape. A coyote’s call echoed over the expressionless waste and vultures circled in the clouded sky, drawn by the scent of death and decay.

Maria shuffled, her own subtle form of sluggish protest. A mild but annoying ‘fuck you’ to her kidnapper. If it was working Dennis showed no sign of admitting it. He wheezed out directions from time to time, right here, watch that loose floorboard there, open that door, but said nothing to betray a sense of irritation or impatience. In fact, he seemed jovial and calm, almost kind.

The house’s disrepair permeated everything, even the air smelling heavily of wood-rot and decay. It clung to the sagging ceiling, it paced over rotted floors, and trailed pas the peeling plaster. The runners along the floor had separated from the walls to leave thin, black crevices that stretched down to the basement below, allowing the squirming figures of mice to take hold. Some of the walls sported holes in the plaster, punching through the drywall and faded paint to the white, chalky texture within. A few more glaring offenders even showed through the slat work of the wall itself, peeking out from behind the sheetrock façade. The warm forty-watt bulbs flickered in the encroaching dusk, many hung off fraying wires that certainly flew in the face of every construction code since the turn of the century.

The subtly swinging lights cast the entire structure in a haunted, off-putting light. Once the building had looked grand, a marvel of construction and a beauty to look upon, now it was a tomb, a relic, a place for the dead.

They were nearing the back of the sprawling house – Complex, Maria decided, taking into account the vast maze of hallways that made up the majority of the downstairs. The place was gigantic, labyrinthine, and there were (at least) two other floors. On top of the size, there was a strange quality to the place that seemed to play tricks on her sense of direction. Several times she could have sworn they took three rights or three lefts, yet they never ended up in the same place. They wound outwards, towards the building’s outer wall, yet no path seemed to take them directly where they wanted to go. She shook her head, pushing the disturbing thoughts from her mind, chalking them up to lack of sleep, or terror, or hunger, or all three.

As they moved towards the outskirts of the building, Maria chanced a glance out one of the cracked, but unbroken windows. The blinds were down, but the slats had long been splintered down the center, frayed wooden halves hung without purpose from useless cloth threads.

Through the demolished blinds, Maria could see the landscape, bathed in the fiery glow of sunset. The snow had drifted down for hours, and the sky looked like more was coming, the clouds diffusing the light to cast the entire scene in an orange-red glow that would hang in the air well into the depth of night. The heavy clouds, breathing the final flames of the sun, loomed thick on the horizon, drifting closer to dump their contents upon the dry and cracked soil, to cover the handful of dry patches still poking through the faint dusting of today’s snow.

A sign flapped in the breeze, a breeze slowly building into a stiff wind. It read PHILLIPS MORTUARY AND CREMATORIUM in faded, blue lettering, some so weather-stripped that they looked like the ghosts of letters past. Maria found herself wondering when Phillips Mortuary and Crematorium had its last customer grace its front doors. The only thing she knew was that the cremator still burned hot and the rickety elevator still worked.

That was enough to keep her on her toes.

“Mother made the sign, painted it herself way back in the day,” Dennis said, following her gaze. “She was steady like that, but then she got the shakes. Her hands weren’t smooth any more… I heard some folks call her ‘deft’, but I ain’t sure what that means.”

Maria cast a final, forlorn gaze at the landscape, at freedom, before moving on and upwards, “You still get many customers out here?”

She hoped they did, customers would mean people, people would mean chances, chances were the one thing standing between herself and whatever horrid plans the man and his mother had in store for her.

“Nah,” Dennis replied. “The town dried up a ways back. The mine ran out of gold, the town packed up, and we were all that was left. Mother said it was bound to happen one day, and I don’t much miss ‘em. They were… Well, they didn’t much like Mother and me.”

Maria nodded, her heart sinking as she realized that the nearest town was likely fifty miles way – perhaps more. There would be no suspicious customers, no check-ins by friends and family, no cops going door to door looking for a missing Colorado girl.

“You know, we used to be a heck of a business out here,” Dennis said, his eyes glazed over with the look of memory. “I mean, we don’t look it no more, but back in the day we were the ‘premium service’ for three counties.”

“I believe it,” Maria replied, and she did. The house was – at one time – stunning, a discernable hint of wealth hung to the skeleton that was left, a skull in a tiara.

The wall alongside them seemed to tremor with energy, and Maria detected a low, mechanical rumbling. It seemed to pulsate with energy from outside, from somewhere close. Maria stopped, allowing her confusion to paint her face. She craned her neck, listening for the source.

“That sound?” Dennis asked.

She nodded.

“That’s the generator. Power company packed up when the town did, so we’ve got to manage on our own out here.”

Shit, Maria thought. There went any chance of a chance visit by the meter reader, or an unexpected call to an electrical tech. Nothing would help her get a message out to the outside world. Something told her that the house/complex would also have a well of its own, cutting off the need for a water company.

Maria was – well and truly – stranded.

With a faint moan of resignation, she pressed on. Dennis followed close on her heels, like a whipped puppy, a witch’s familiar. His heavy boots scuffed the cracking, creaking ground and his head sloped forward, looking at the scarred leather tips of his scraping feet. He did not speak, seeming to hold in a kind of guilt. He looked like he wanted to speak, to tell her something, but he couldn’t bring himself to give voice to the words. Or he feared what would happen should he tell her.

Something told Maria that Dennis was not the head of this operation after all, despite being corporeal, despite being the only (living) inhabitant of the Phillips Mortuary.

They reached a winding staircase that twisted up through the roof to the second floor. Underneath she could see planks and supports exposed through the crumbling drywall, some of the wooden bars stained black by water. She did not want to set foot on that rickety deathtrap.

“Up,” Dennis said.

Maria hesitated, but a prod between her shoulder blades pushed her onward. She began her ascent.

The steps underfoot sighed with each step upwards in wordless protest. The wind outside howled and buffeted the decaying shutters against the cracking siding, sending smacking echoes throughout the narrow, spiraling passage. Maria clung to the sagging barnister and couldn’t help but question whether it would even hold her weight should she slip. Not likely, was her definitive conclusion. Sturdy or rickety, it did manage to give her some sense of false security in her grip.

They reached the upper level. Maria looked down the corridor, assaulted by a damning sense of déjà vu. The upstairs seemed to mirror the maze of the ground floor, an almost perfect mirror of the winding corridors they had just left, save a few added or missing rooms. Forcing herself to remain alert, Maria tried to memorize each step, each turn in order to build a mental map of the mortuary, her prison. She was not having much luck, she could not tell if Dennis had chosen an intentionally convoluted path, or if the house itself was twisting around them.

They reached what Maria assumed to be the center of the house – if the house had what could truly be defined as a center. From what she could make out, the structure seemed to be roughly rectangular with hallways crisscrossing and backtracking in a specific geometric pattern, intercut by rooms at the intersections and backtracks. Here, at the center, was a massive, vaulted room. She guessed the large room was directly above the kitchen below. She could almost feel the gaze of Mother’s hollow-eyed stare peering up through the floorboards, piercing into her soul with black malice.

The upstairs room itself was immaculate. It stood in stark contrast to the derelict decay permeating the rest of the house. Rich mahogany walls were lined with heavy, towering bookshelves. Each shelf held dusty tomes, some written in languages Maria could not recognize. In one corner of the room two plushy easy-chairs sat, they were worn from use with faint, yellowed cracks in the red-tinged leather upholstery. A fire crackled in the stone fireplace inset into the eastern wall. The popping, flickering light bathed the massive, vaulted room in a warm, smoky comfort. Maria welcomed the warmth after hours spent in the draft, cold confines of her coffin, then in the terrible, frigid house. But despite appearances, the room seemed far from inviting.

What stood out to Maria was the large, brass claw-footed bathtub sitting in the center of the room. It didn’t seem to strange, yet for some unknown reason it filled her with a trembling sense of unease. It had been drained, but still looked to contain the remnants of moisture within. Maria noticed that the brass siding of the tub was covered in strange, curving symbols, carved deep into the gleaming metal. The symbols twisted and intertwined to create a delicate pattern that danced around the entirety of the tub.

Her breath caught in her throat, her heart thumping faster in her chest. On the far wall, above the carved mantelpiece of the fireplace were three inscriptions. Two stars of David flanked a massive pentagram carved into the rich wood paneling. The flickering light caught in the polished grooves to create an iridescent shimmering effect that seemed to radiate dancing light from the mystical carvings.

That settled it: she had been kidnapped by Satanists! Or Jewish Satanists? She could not fully wrap her head around the marriage of the seemingly disparate symbols, but there were other, far more pressing concerns weighing down upon her.

As if compelled by some unseen, unknowable force, she took a step forward. Was it curiosity or something powerful, sinister compelling her forward? All she knew was that – without a semblance of conscious thought – she was walking towards the threshold, holding out a pleading hand in supplication.

She was yanked back from the entryway. Strong hands circled her shoulders and pulled with surprising force.

“No!” Dennis howled.

Maria staggered backwards her arms still bound tight behind her back. Her tenuous balance collapsed and sent her crashing down. The weak floorboards moaned with distress as she skidded backwards, terror filling her eyes.

Dennis breathed quickly, the whites of his eyes showing in untold panic. He looked around with desperation, his dilated pupils dancing from wall to wall, door to door, as if searching for a spying presence.

After several dragging moments he sighed. Relief washed over him, as if he had been waiting for the Heavens to open up and strike them both dead with a burst of temperamental lightning.

 He turned his gaze to her, lips trembling, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry…”

Racing across the groaning floor, he lifted Maria to her feet, pawing at her shoulder with apologetic – unwelcome – hands. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Missy. It’s just that Mother don’t take kindly to folk going into her study uninvited… She’d been mad, real mad, if she saw you go in there… It ain’t safe. Understand?”

Maria nodded but she most certainly did not understand.

“Okay,” he let out another trembling breath, then smiled. “Let’s get you to your room.”

Grasping her by the arm – gently this time – he led her around the large, cathedral-like room, and down another hallway. Two doorways opened to their right, leading into staterooms and parlors drenched in secret shadows. Maria noticed that nothing stood to their left but an empty expanse of wall that seemed to arc around the center of the building, as if hiding a missing room. She thought of the crematorium, knowing that there must be a smokestack running up the center of the building, a dark pipe spewing plumes of death into the barren desert sky. But with the amount of missing space, it would have to be one hell of a smokestack.

They rounded the blank space, the wall dotted with cracked frames, photos of many faces staring out, but the landscape remained constant. One man and one woman, of varying ages and disparate lineages, stared stoic into the camera, surrounded by the bleak Wyoming desert, in old photos there was a homestead, built of birch timber, modest but home-like, in more recent photos stood the mortuary, slowly descending into disrepair and decay. The photos lined the wall, as if documenting the unseen and unspoken history of the tract of land where they now stood, as they made their way to the far, southern end of the building. Here the masonry narrowed to a severe point, a room at the bow of a great landlocked ship.

At this final door, Dennis fished around in his pockets for something. His face scrunched in concentration until his expression softened and he extracted a large, rusted key. Smiling his apologetic smile, he said, “I’m sorry, Missy. I don’t like locking you in, but we can’t have you running off in the night…”

With that he laughed. He actually laughed. As if her situation was a source of amusement, an innocent joke shared between longtime friends. As if she had asked to be here.

Rage welled up within her and she wanted to spit in the large man’s face. Tethered hands or not, she wanted to wring his neck and not stop squeezing until the life faded from him and his body went slack in her arms.

Sensing her rage, Dennis looked away, refusing to meet her seething gaze. Slowly, he unsheathed his knife and Maria tensed. She could already feel the cold steel of the blade driving into the warmth of her belly, she could feel the sticky, hot ooze slipping from her, pouring out onto rotted floorboards to feed the mice below. She flinched.

The razor-sharp blade cut through the zip-ties as if the plastic were butter. The plastic bonds fell and lay on the floor, and her arms were once again hers. First she moved her injured arm in and out, curling her fingers. Pain gnawed at her shoulder blade and the socket, but she seemed undamaged – permanently at the least. Small miracles.

Dennis looked to her, his smile weak, sorrowful as he pushed her into the room. “I’ll bring you some stew.”

Then the door closed, the lock clicked.

Maria stood in the center of her prison. Alone.

A deep chill permeated the air, clutching Maria in its passionless embrace. She curled her aching arms around her shivering shoulders and rubbed. She wished – again – that she had been wearing a jacket this fateful morning. She wished that she had decided to read indoors. She wished that her phone had been nestled in her pocket instead of charging on her bed.

Wish in one hand… her father used to say with such delicate charm, leaving out the vulgar end of the classic turn of phrase. Well today the vulgarity seemed appropriate, for here she was with a head full of wishes and a hand full of shit.

She turned to take in her room, cell, she reminded herself. The room had seen better days. Once brilliant, golden wallpaper peeled back from the walls to reveal blotches of sickly white plaster beneath. Green drapes – once regal – had faded in the sun into bleached and threadbare imitations of their former glory. The floor – once gold – had turned a dingy shade of brown, the floorboards underneath moaning with each step. White light from the setting sun trickled in, cone-like, from a skylight, its glass smeared and barred with steel. One window was inset to the southern wall, overlooking the barren desert, the view only marred by rusted steel bars that had long-since been covered by the steady, creeping growth of ivy. A strange runic crown had been carved into the wall over the bed, flanked by faded paintings of a dove and a vulture on either side.

Maria looked down as she felt the sagging, wooden floorboards give way to something soft. A tiger-skin rug lay on the floor, its eyes dead and maw gaping in a frozen roar, or howl. It was a strange sight in such dilapidated squalor. It seemed a trapping of wealth amongst the destitute, a golden statue in the center of a homeless shelter.

Shivering, Maria turned to her – the – bed. Thankfully, a blanket had been left for her. It was thinning in spots, like the mottled skin of a dog with mange, but it was thick enough to help ward off the encroaching cold of the winter night. Outside, the wind howled and intermingled with the plaintive cries of coyotes. Lonely cries of nature mated with her own terror and disorientation, gripping her soul in its terrible grip. She felt the tears returning but forced them away. Pulling the blanket around her shoulders as a beggar’s cloak, she moved to the window to look upon the desolate landscape.

The wind cried mournful, kicking up gusts of fine sand that danced in the dimming red light. The snow had begun to fall anew, white billowing clouds that danced through the setting sun glimmered as they caught the last rays of the dying day. Any other day the sight would have been beautiful, Maria would have been content to sit on her porch and sip a cup of steaming cocoa, watching the flakes dance in the encroaching night. Today was not ‘any other day.’ Today the steady descent of frozen perspiration was another sign of her isolation, a further thread cut off from the outside world. Today the descending flakes signaled entrapment, cutting off roads and – with the roads – any possible means of escape.

She watched the sun setting behind the mountains from southbound window and held back tears that threatened to consume.

#

Sleep did not come easily to Maria Martinez. The metal frame of the cot poked up through the thin bedding, jabbing between her aching shoulder blades. She shifted on the lump matress and tried not to dwell on the stale, sweaty smell that clung to the fabric. It stank of despair, or human waste, of semen. It stand like defeat.

The pillows were thin, hollow shells that once held luxurious down, now scarce more than cloth sacks. Her threadbare blanket cloak did little to ward off the encompassing cold that seeped through the worn siding and into her drafty room. The tears she shed as she lay in her frigid cocoon still clung to her cheeks, frozen by the sub-zero temperatures that leaked in at every crack and hole in the wreck of a home.

Tossing and turning, she tried with ragged bursts to make the horrific conditions manageable. Her stomach rumbled from lack, and she hoped that Dennis would return bearing a bowl of steaming stew, his slack-jawed half-idiot smile plastered across his lined face. He said he’d bring her a bowl, but where was he?

Has Mother stopped him? Maria wondered. Has Mother forced him to eat his own supper and leave me upstairs to starve?

Maria lay on her poking, prodding bed and trembled. The tears were coming back, welling up behind dams, threatening to break floodgates already overrun. No, she would not cry. She would not allow herself to dwell upon the horror of her situation. She would fight. She would survive.

She clung to that glimmering hope – hidden deep within the shadowed recesses of her heart – the hope that she could get out of this. That there was still a chance for her.

The wind eked through the cracks of the siding, slipping through the ancient, dried insulation. The air forcing itself into the room began to take on a plaintive note, the mournful cries of the damned souls of Hades. Souls that drifted through the derelict house-turned-morgue, souls that begged for respite from their own unending hauntings. Through the sleepless hours, Maria felt ethereal hands paw at her, caress her, beg for her warmth, but there was no warmth to share. The howling cries of the ghosts of Phillips Mortuary and Crematorium would not be silenced, not even as the ticking clock above the doorway neared three-thirty.

Maria heard the latch click and the long, tenuous creak as her door swung inward. She sucked in a quick breath and lay still, unmoving, her blanket wrapped tight around her body like a funeral shroud.

She waited. She waited and hoped that they – whoever they were – would think she was asleep. She hoped that she would pass the long, frigid night unmolested.

Then came the steady squeak of wheels. They needed oil, moaning their mouse-like protest with each turn forward. The hard, rubber tires rumbled over the floorboards, nearing her. Then they went quiet, as the chair crossed the tiger rug laying on the floor, muting the figure’s progress.

A hand – corporeal and living – lay on Maria’s back. She lay still, not daring to move, not daring to look. The long, cracking sigh of the old woman filled the air – the dead woman.

“You are not who I would have chosen, Miss Martinez,” the woman said in a hoarse, croaking voice as she lay a wallet beside Maria’s head – Maria’s wallet. “But, my son likes to point out: beggars cannot be choosers, and I am – despite my better intentions – certainly a beggar.”

Another sigh and the hand moved away, the chair rolling back a few feet. “I do know that you are awake, Miss Martinez. Don’t demean yourself by pretending otherwise.”

Maria groaned, “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” the old woman parroted. “I want a great many things, child. I want safety, I want food on my table, I want a life where my boy and I can live in peace. Most importantly, I never want my son to die. Never again.”

“Everybody dies,” Maria whispered.

A cold chuckle filled the dark room. Maria could picture it piercing through the old woman’s withered lips, through the corpse’s dead and rotted teeth.

“Oh, Miss Martinez, there is so much about this world you do not understand. In some ways I envy you. Are you hungry?”

Maria could not help herself, “Yes. Yes ma’am.”

“Good,” the woman responded.

Maria heard the creaking of the wheels. She heard the dull thump as the wheelchair bounced over the tack strip under her doorway. Chancing a look back, Maria saw the darkened silhouette hunched over in her antique chair. Mother seemed larger at night, with broad shoulders and a full crop of frazzled hair. The dim light seeping in from the hallway illuminated the floral print on the old dress, but the face remained shadowed.

“My boy is a good boy, naïve, but a good boy. I will not have you harming his soul. Do you understand me?”

Maria said nothing, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders, shivering.

“He wanted to feed you. He wanted to show you kindness, mercy. But I set the boy straight,” Mother said.

With that, the door closed.

Outside, the wind howled. Inside, Maria’s stomach howled in unison. She shivered against the seeping gusts of winter and tried to quell the thunderous ache within.

Maria was cold. She was hungry. She was terrified.

Alone.

#

Maria was not alone.

Around the room, sets of eyes were fixed upon her shivering form. Some watched with sympathy, others with guilt, a few with jealousy, and one pair dripped malice. They spoke to her through the howling gusts of wind, the screams of the night’s storm. They made their warnings and protests known through creaking floorboards and moaning joists. They tried to garner the young woman’s attention but she did not see them, just as they had not seen until it was too late.

One figure, taller than the others and meaner, approached. The hulking, familiar form stood over the woman – finally in the arms of Morpheus, snoring gently – and growled. The figure watched her with cold slits where eyes should be, a fiery rage brimming within.

Another watched, a pretty woman, gorgeous once. She watched and wanted the sleeping woman, or more accurately wanted to be the sleeping woman. She missed feeling, she missed touch, and she would do anything to feel once again. To be once again. She reached out with longing hands that could not touch, non-corporeal tears dotting her porcelain skin. The large figure glanced at her and huffed, no words were needed to detect his creeping disdain for the beautiful girl, just a violent expulsion of air.

The throng stood as watchers, as sentinels. Each with their own memories, clinging to them the way the vines of ivy clung to their decaying tomb. Their nonexistent breath misted in the air, a psychic memory of physical being, a reflex of kind. They stood as statues with breath misting and the past running wild.

Until she came.

The darker presence entered silent. Unmistakable. She snapped at the scavengers, dispersing them back from whence they came. She hissed with thin lips pulled back, a dog revealing its fangs. She dominated. She ruled.

The wicked presence – definitively female – stood over her sleeping prize. Impatience gripped her soul and drove her forth, pleading with her to take action, knowing her time was short. She wanted the same thing that the beautiful spirit wanted, she wanted the prize. She wanted the thing that the sleeping woman did not even know she held.

She wanted to live again.

#

Light streamed in through the rusted bars to cast crisscrossing shadows across the worn wooden flooring. Maria shifted in the poking and prodding bed, blinking away the morning’s light. The fresh snow entombing the earth outside bounced back the suns radiance, creating a blinding glow that seemed to bathe the entire room in a surreal and heavenly light.

Maria’s mind felt hazy, each movement followed by a grumbling protest from fatigue and physical abuse. She stretched her arms and felt an uncomfortable pinch from her injured shoulder. For a flitting instant she pictured herself waking in her own bed, in her own house, all this written off as a terrible nightmare.

“Morning, Missy.”

The voice was familiar, too familiar, and with the voice her dreams of nightmares shattered. Reality set in.

Maria spun, pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders, as if the derelict cloth was made of chain mail. She fixed her eyes on Dennis, trying to look steely and cold rather than betray the terror that gripped her soul.

He stood in the doorway, looking beaten, a whipped dog. He would not meet her eyes. Instead, he idly scuffed his boot against the wooden floor outside the door. He looked to be waiting for something.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I, uh, I was wondering if you needed anything?”

Maria scoffed, letting out a short sarcastic burst of air. A huff is what her mother would have called it. She liked that term. She huffed.

“I’m sorry Mother wouldn’t let you eat last night,” he said, his voice quiet, somber, beaten.

Maria did not respond, keeping up an icy exterior despite her gurgling, protesting stomach.

He looked down, finally speaking again, still with the demeanor of a whipped puppy, “I brought you this…”

He placed a bowl of oatmeal onto the wooden floor of her room. “Don’t tell Mother, okay?”

A dark malice gripped her, wanting to see her large, intimidating captor sweat. She fixed a dark, domineering stare on him and remained silent.

“Please, I don’t want to get into trouble,” he said, whined.

Her jaw remained clenched.

He looked desperate, terrified. Finally, he sighed and picked the bowl off the floor. “Sorry, Missy. I can’t risk it… Sorry.”

He moved to leave, his shoulders slumped, his gaze fixed on the rotted flooring beneath his over-large boots.

“Wait,” Maria whispered, wanting to shout.

He stopped, turning slowly.

She did not want to beg. She did not want to plead. She did not want to rely on this man… this villain. But what choice did she have?

“I won’t tell.”

Dennis breathed an audible sigh of relief, his dark face lighting up as he turned back. With a tremble of a smile he placed the bowl back in its spot on the floor, then scurried from the room. The door thudded, echoing in the enclosed space, the latch clicking.

Maria listened to his boots retreating down the hallway. Waiting.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Maria leapt from the bed and scurried across the floor on all fours. She was sure it must have looked comical, but she didn’t care. She was starved, and a veritable feast was before her.

She grasped the bowl, there was no spoon or utensil, but she did not care. It was food! Glorious, and nourishing. Food!

The oatmeal was thick and sticky, bland to the point of tastelessness, but she welcomed it. The chunks of sludge-like breakfast settled in her hollow stomach, filling the howling void within. Relief washed through her aching body, clearing her foggy head, and quieting the gnawing hunger. The muscles in her shoulders and neck unclenched, and a migraine she didn’t know had developed began to soften.

She sat on the cold, rotted floor for what felt like hours, staring at the empty bowl. She wanted more, but she knew better than to ask. This much had been a kindness, a rebellion against the force of Mother, any more could have ramifications for both her and Dennis.

Stop it! You’re acting like Mother can hurt you, she told herself. The thing is a corpse! I don’t know how she’s speaking, I don’t know how any of that is possible, but she is dead. Rotting. Soon-to-be buried. Stop acting like she’s anything more than a piece of human taxidermy.

Still, she knew that something strange clung to the corpse. This was no act of a deranged and schizophrenic kidnapper; this was no mere show of throwing his voice. Some essence, wicked and pervasive, clung to the decaying body and spoke through the walls of the crumbling house. She – or it – was the true ruler of this derelict kingdom, the real power behind the operation. Maria knew all these things, but did not want to look. She held shut that door of realization, terrified where else it might lead.

Pins and needles ran up and down her legs, but Maria turned out the annoyance. She sat silent, cross-legged on her floor and turned the situation over and over in her racing mind. She needed a way out, this much she knew. How? That was miles beyond her wildest dreams. She tuned out her stiff bones, she tuned out the pacing footsteps a floor below, every sound began to melt away from her as she sank into herself. Even the nerve-wracking scritch-scratch of the mice scurrying in the walls vanished, she could no longer hear as they gnawed at insulation and tore at rotted framing. She focused on her one, all-consuming goal. Still, she came up blank.

Frustrated, she forced herself to unsteady feet. Storming to the window, she looked out the rusted bars, pining for the free, open expanse. The landscape had transformed into a white canvas. The snow’s ridges looked like waves frozen in place, the sun glistening off their crests. The previous night’s wind had fallen silent, the air as dead as the surrounding landscape. The harsh sunlight did nothing to warm the ground or melt the steady chill creeping into her room.

The room, she reminded herself. Never my room.

The front door slammed and Dennis marched across the crunching ground, a heavy parka wrapped around his large body. He held a snow-shovel as he marched towards the buried hearse and the submerged, gravel drive. The driveway stretched on hundreds of feet before reaching the dirt road that stretched back to civilization, shoveling was pointless, an exercise in futility. Still, it seemed to calm the large man as he went about his work. He took large shovelfuls, throwing the powdery, glistening snow over his broad shoulder, billowing clouds of white dancing in the stagnant air.

With nothing else to do, Maria watched. She watched his every move as he hurled heaping mounds of snow onto the side of the drive. Dirt mixed with the pure, virgin snow, staining the steadily increasing mounds a faint, filthy brown. After about an hour he tossed aside the shovel and lay back in the snow. His arms were outstretched, his right leg crossing his left. The handle of the shovel dangled from his foot, haphazard and almost comical. He yawned, refusing to look at the remaining half of the long drive, refusing to allow anything to mar his moment of rest. He looked… innocent?

Maria felt a strange shiver run down her spine. Something about the mundane task of snow removal seemed surreal, unnerving. This man had – not twenty-four hours ago – taken her from her home by gunpoint, he had locked her in a coffin, and had imprisoned her in his home. Now, there he lay, shoveling snow and resting under the glaring sunlight. To him this was just like any other day. To him this was nothing scary, nothing unusual. He was used to this situation, used to having a woman imprisoned in his house.

The most terrifying twenty-four hours of Maria Martinez’s life was just another day in the life of Dennis Phillips.

Maria tore her eyes from the harrowing sight, turning her attention to her room, her cage. She toyed with the idea of tearing the worn sheetrock walls. She could tear a hole in the wall and sneak into the framing of the house. She could crawl her way down to the basement, and… then what? Die alone in the muddy dark, surrounded by rats? You’d be traded a gilded cage for a rat infested tomb!

She eyes the splintered and chewed baseboards. One section looked to have been pried off, then replaced with cautious care. Or pried out by mice and kicked back into place by Dennis, she reminded herself. The image of their writhing, disgusting bodies crawling through their own feces behind the loose board sent a cool chill through her mind. Even as she reached for the board, hoping it may contain clues or something to aid her escape, she was the wriggling mice, gnawing and hissing.

She pulled back her hand, her newly-filled stomach heaving.

Shaking her head, Maria returned to her cot, plopping down on the sagging mattress. She pulled her legs up, lying in the fetal position. Forcing her eyes shut she tried to force the images of writhing mice and snow-shoveling kidnappers from her head. She felt like Dorothy whispering “there’s no place like home,” under her ragged breath. She dreamed of a pair of ruby slippers that could whisk her from the hellhole that had consumed her life and take her back to her old reality.

She dreamed.

#

Maria’s phone went straight to voicemail. Again.

Mercy Harran pumped the brake and pulled up in front of Maria’s house, wondering what the hell had happened to her friend. She read about the dead cops on the news, wondering why Maria hadn’t called. If anything that wild happened outside Mercy’s front door, it would have been a cold day in hell before Mercy didn’t call up her best friend. So why hadn’t Maria called?

Mercy tried Maria twice. Then three times. After the third pre-recorded voicemail, she hopped in the car and gunned it across town. Throughout the entire drive a gnawing sense of unease formed in Mercy’s stomach. What if Maria had looked in the dead man’s box? What if Maria found out about…

She stopped her train of thought, knowing it foolish. Maria wasn’t going through old memories, she was running from them. She was still in the aching throes of mourning, and she was still leaning on Mercy for support. Mercy knew that, and Mercy stayed. Despite her yearning to leave the small town and head to the big city, to head to Denver, she wouldn’t leave. Not until Maria was back on her feet. Part of Mercy hurt for Maria, part of Mercy felt guilty over her part in what happened to Maria. A darker, subtle part of Mercy blamed Maria, bitter at postponed dreams and wasted nights listening to sobs and self-blame. Of course, Mercy would never admit that part of her mind existed.

She pulled up against the side of the dirt road and hopped out of her old, beater of a car. Stretching her overworked back, the back of a waitress, Mercy stomped up the pathway to Maria’s house. It was nice, way nicer than any early twenties person deserved to have. Of course, Maria had inherited it. Another pang of jealousy filled Mercy’s heart. All she had inherited when her father died was a trunk full of shit and a pack of Marlboro lights.

Her Doc Martens kicked up clouds of fresh-fallen snow as she shuffled towards the front door. Her eyes ran over the well-maintained house, the windows she had helped Maria replace, and the homey, colorful decorations.

She froze, her heart kicking into a gallop.

The door hung open, flapping in the faint winter’s breeze. Snow had dusted into the foyer to create a thin, icy film over the floor. Something happened.

Mercy flew down the pathway, tearing into the door. She raced through the downstairs, room to room, crying out Maria’s name. Her racing heart filled her ears and her stomach felt heavy, like she had swallowed a quarry.

She felt like a newcomer, late to the party, only to find the booze gone and the guests passed out. The downstairs empty, she raced up the stairs. The second-to-top stair screamed out underfoot, a damning creak that had sold out her best friend. She tore down the hall, screaming for Maria, but no voice called out in reply.

The door to Maria’s room hung off-kilter, kicked from one of its hinges. A faint scent clung to the air, the scent of death, the scent of hopelessness. Gunpowder?

Entering her best friend’s room she found the shattered mirror, she found the window hanging open and for a fleeting instant she wondered if Maria – still clinging to grief – had flung herself out? No, not Maria, not in a million years.

The definitive answer was much more terrifying. In the far wall, Mercy counted three holes, round tufts in the sheetrock, tearing through the wallpaper. Bullet holes.

Gasping and recoiling, Mercy fumbled for her phone. She dialed with trembling hands. Three numbers to summon the cavalry, but were they already too late?

Maria Martinez had been taken.

#

“Wake up.”

Maria did not recognize the voice as it invaded the realm of her dreams. It was small, breathy, a child’s whisper. She felt a small hand paw at her shoulder, jarring her from the clutches of sleep.

Her eyes fluttered open, still bleary from being snatched from sleep into the grim reality of daylight. The sun had risen in the sky, the noontime glare relecting off the snow to cast her room in a brilliant glow. It seemed ethereal, heaven-like. Blasphemous.

A boy stood in her room, staring at her through wide, curious eyes. His lips cracked in a imp-like smile, slightly crooked and mischievous. His dark, tousled hair jutted out in conflicting directions, giving him the impression of a mad scientist. His clothes were tattered, and strange. They looked to be from the turn of the century, the Old West. He looked no older than twelve, but something in his eyes betrayed unfathomable age. They were pools of history, of haunting memories and sorrows unknowable.

“You sleep like the dead,” the child giggled.

“Who…?” Maria trailed off, still reeling from being woken, still reeling from the strange, new visitor.

“I’m Jeb. Who are you?”

“I’m Maria,” she said, trying to stay calm but her mind was racing. Who was this boy? How had he slipped into her locked room? Was he with the Phillips family, or was he a prisoner as well? And why was he dressed like a side character in Bonanza?

“Howdy,” he smiled. “So you’re the new one, huh?”

“New one?”

“Yeah, Sylvia said you’re the new one… She used to be new, but now it’s you!”

“I don’t understand… who… who’s Sylvia?”

Jeb rolled his eyes, like Maria was asking what color round was. Changing the subject he asked, “You know any games?”

“Jeb, who are you talking about, what’s going…?”

“It gets dull around here, and nobody ever wants to play,” Jeb sighed. He pulled up his shirt to show her a nasty purple bruise over his ribs. “Kane did that last time I asked him to play. That guy, he’s a real sumbitch, real mean!”

“Who’s Kane?”

“Oh, you don’t want to meet Kane… he’s big and he’s mean, a real son of a whore, that’s what he is!”

“Jeb, is Kane… Is Kane with Dennis?”

Jeb snickered, shaking his head, “Nah, Dennis is in Kane, and Kane don’t like that.”

“What do you mean ‘in’ Kane?”

Jeb shrugged and skipped to the door, looking back, “Look, lady, I got to go. The mean bitch is sleeping, but I don’t want her to see me talking to you when she wakes up… She sees me talking to you and I’ll end up in the basement with the real bad ones.”

“What are you talking about, Jeb? Who’s the mean bitch?”

“The mean bitch? She’s the one who wants to be in you,” Jeb said, his voice growing melancholic. He turned his gaze from Maria and shuffled through her closed door.

Here one instant. Gone the next.

#

Maria shot upright in her bed. Her chest heaved as panic gripped her soul. Her gaze darted about the room, searching for her young visitor. He had been standing right there! He couldn’t have gone anywhere, the door was locked, the room secure.

A dream, she told herself. Just a dream.

It had to be reel, no matter how much she wished otherwise. She had felt the small hand shaking her awake, she had heard his mischievous smile cracking the boyish face. She had heard the cold disdain in his voice as he told her about Kane, and she had heard the gripping terror in his voice when he spoke about the mean bitch.

Where had he gone?

Her eyes settled on the loose baseboard, curiosity welling within her. A surge of unexpected confidence welled up within her, she leapt from the bed and marched towards the far wall. She had just begun to crouch when she heard the lock to her door click open.

She spun as Dennis cracked the door, peering in. “Hey, Missy? You descent?”

Maria crossed her arms, stepping into his line of vision.

“There you are!” he smiled. “You were sleeping when I came by before, I figured I’d leave you be. But seein’ as you’re up, Mother’s been asking for you.”

Maria backed up, cornering herself. There was terror in her eyes but she would not respond.

“Come on, then,” Dennis said, opening the door wide.

“No zip-ties today?” she asked.

“Do I need them?”

“No,” she replied and strode ahead.

Dennis stayed by her door, allowing her to wander. He called after her, “Mother’s in the study. You remember where it is?”

Maria couldn’t believe her ears. They were allowing her to roam the house free? It had to be a trick, a snare of the mind in the Phillips’s sick game. All she dared say in reply was, “Yeah, I remember.”

“Good. And before you go getting any funny ideas. It snowed a helluva storm last night, and there ain’t nothing for fifty straight miles but desert and below freezing cold. I know what you’re thinking, and I’m just saying it ain’t wise. Alright?”

“Alright.”

Dennis shot her his big, dumb smile and nodded. He turned and shuffled off towards the stairs, “Don’t you keep Mother waiting. She really don’t like that.”

Shivering, not entirely from the cold, Maria made her way down the creaking halls. The floorboards sagged underfoot and the lights flickered overhead, worse than the night before. She wondered if the storm had damaged the wiring… the generator? A faint smile flicked across her lips, if the damage was sever – maybe – Dennis would call a repairman. Unlikely, but at the very least that would mean a trip to the nearest town, and that would buy enough time for Maria to come up with a plan.

Movement flickered in her peripherals. Shifting images, and faintly perceptible pulsations darted in and out of the edges of her vision. It seemed like the walls were moving, like the house was ebbing and morphing around her. A sudden and overpowering terror gripped Maria, inexplicable and consuming.

The study was just ahead, and Maria lingered outside. She rubbed her shoulders, desperate for the facsimile for human touch and connection. She shivered, remembering the feeling of rough hands pulling her back from that threshold. She could still hear Dennis’s booming words: Mother don’t take kindly to folk going into her study uninvited… She’d been mad, real mad, if she saw you go in there… It ain’t safe.

Taking a deep, heaving breath, Maria turned the corner and entered the study.

The wheelchair sat in the center of the room, beside the large tub. The hollow-eyed corpse stared at the unbroken surface of the water – freshly drawn and steaming. The flickering firelight caught the carved sigils in the rich wood paneling, making them seem to glow in the dim room, as if charged by some mystic energy. The logs in the fireplace popped and hissed, glowing with latent flames.

“Come, girl,” the voice hissed. It seemed to emanate from the walls, echoing through the large, circular room. “I don’t bite.”

A chilling snigger filled the air as Maria took a step within. The circular room seemed to lean in over her, a crushing presence descending upon her. The wheelchair and its occupant did not budge, but the hollows seemed to follow her every move, glowering with unfiltered malice.

“Strip.” It was not a request.

“I… I would rather…”

“Stip!” screamed the voice.

Maria felt icy hands run across her skin, as if an ethereal figure was trying to tear her clothes from her body. Instinctual hands shot up, clasping the folds of her clothes, holding them fast. Her lips trembled and her knees felt weak.

“Please,” Mother said, but the request was forced, a formality.

It is a corpse! Maria thought. Why be bashful?

She knew the answer. He was watching. Behind the mirror across the room, or perhaps through a peephole borne into the rich wood paneling. Somewhere, Dennis was watching, lurking.

She did not want to disrobe, not for Mother, and not for Dennis’s amusement. But she didn’t have a choice.

Slowly, trying to use her arms to keep as much of herself covered as possible, Maria took off her clothes. One-by-one they fell to the floor, forming a small heap on the floor. The polished floor underfoot looked to be marble, cold under her bare feet. She padded forward, her arms covering her breasts, feeling her nipples poking into her forearm’s flesh, hard in the frigid air.

“You must be freezing, girl,” Mother said. The soothing voice was a façade – an obvious one – and did little to soothe Maria. “Get in the tub, the water is warm.”

Maria did not want to test the waters, but she knew better than to disobey. She slid one foot into the water, wincing. The water was fiery, nearly boiling. Her flesh turned a deep shade of pink the instant it submerged. Still, the heat was better than the winter’s chill that permeated the entire house. She slid under the water, allowing her head to submerge, holding her breath in and dreamed of summer.

When she surfaced, the dream was shattered. A fresh chill built from within as she realized that the wheelchair had moved closer!

Seemed to move, she reminded herself. Her mind was starting to play tricks on her, not a good sign. If she was going to survive this she needed to stay level. The corpse was a husk, her kidnapper had two minds within one, there were no ghosts lurking the halls, and there was nothing dangerous besides Dennis. The house was empty save her, and the madman.

Keep it together, Maria.

“Good,” tittered the woman’s voice.

A bar of soap sat atop a thin rail that circled the tub. It lay just a few inches from Maria’s hand, sitting comfortably against the cool brass.

“Wash.”

Maria complied, her unease ever-present, but it did feel good to be clean again. She shifted with each scrub, discomfort filling her being as the hollow stare bore into her.

The water was warming, tingling, swirling around her chilled skin, thawing her frozen bones. If she died tonight, at least she would die clean, with a memory of warmth on her skin.

“Cleanliness is key, girl. Purity. Do you understand?”

Maria nodded.

“Don’t lie! You may be cursed with the Devil’s tongue, but that does not mean you must use it,” the voice hissed. “You think I’m talking about hygiene, but what I speak of is much richer… much deeper. So, I ask again: do you understand?”

Maria glanced around the room, spotting the small boy in the doorway. His eyes were wide as he stared at the bath, terrified. He pressed a small finger to his lips and slowly shook his head.

“No,” Maria said.

“No?”

The boy nodded. Maria fixed her stare on the vacant holes where eyes should be. She replied, “No.”

“Good. You can learn,” Mother exclaimed. If she had working arms she would have thrown them in the air in relief.

Maria set her jaw but let the insult slide. When the time came, she would make the bitch pay. She would pay for everything she did and said, she would make both the corpse and Dennis pay everything back. With interest.

“Wash,” Mother said, then fell silent.

Maria chanced another glance to the doorway but Jeb had vanished. Part of her was relieved that she hadn’t simply dreamed him up. The other part of her shriveled with overwhelming terror, because that meant ghosts did walk the halls of the Phillips Mortuary… Or she was going mad.

She was alone with nothing but the water and the corpse for company. The corpse had fallen silent, but still she could feel its gaze. Allowing herself to sink below the water, Maria felt the scalding liquid against her skin but still a shiver ran along her spine. She held her breath and watched the bubbles float from her mouth to pierce the water above. The dead figure looked down through the rippling surface, black voids watching Maria’s every move.

The presence in the air seemed fainter, asleep. Even the corpse’s relentless gaze seemed lessened, smaller, weaker… asleep? Maria could not help but wonder if Mother had gone away, much as she had in the kitchen. If so, was this a chance to act? Was this a chance to see what else lay in the strange, guarded room?

Maria’s lungs began to ache just as a plan was formulating in her mind. She pushed off the bottom of the tub, rising. She felt the water break around her scalp, cold air intermingling with her wet hair.

Hands. Strong, rough hands gripped her shoulders and pushed.

She went down. A torrent of bubbles escaping her in a silent scream as she was forced back down.

She struggled, trying to push upwards, but iron-bound muscles held her in place. She thrashed, looking for arms to grab, but only water surrounded her.

Visible or not, she could feel the fingernails digging into her flesh. She felt the muscular arms as the pressed down, pushing the air from her.

Her lungs burned, already expended they had been emptied by her scream. Her thrashing grew in intensity, desperate to escape the horrible grip.

She wanted to scream for help, but knew that was a sure-fire way to drown. God… I’m going to die!

Her lungs howled from lack, empty, screaming for air. The hands kept pushing, down, down to the bottom. Down to hell.

“Stop it!” Mother’s voice screamed. “She is not for you!”

The hands seemed to push harder.

“You will listen! I bind you, I command you!”

“Fuck you,” came a growling, new voice. It was male, American, but not Dennis’s South-tinged drawl.

The world began to take on reddish hues and Mari’s skin glowed gold. The roof overhead began to twist and write, a field of intertwining snakes… Like the walls in the halls.

So, this is what drowning feels like? Maria thought wistfully.

A howl splintered the air. Unearthly, it shook the room and sent the water into a bubbling roil, as if the tub had been set over a giant stovetop. Through the maddened shriek, Mother’s voice growled, deeper than before, godlike.

“Go back from whence you came, back to where you were bound. Begone foul spirit. Begone!”

With those words, the weight lifted. No, not lifted. It was gone. Gone with such suddenness that it seemed to have been torn from existence and hurled away.

Maria broke the surface, sputtering and coughing. Torrents of water poured from her mouth as she looked about with wild, terrified eyes.

Dennis came barreling into the room, terror and desperation filling his face. For a second, Maria was sure the emotions were real. It couldn’t have been his hands holding her under, and he hadn’t been watching her from a hiding place. Something else had creeped into the room, something with far more sinister intent.

“What happened?” Dennis asked, his voice trembling.

Maria continued to cough and sputter, not able to offer an answer. No having an answer to offer.

“Kane happened,” Mother said. She sounded weak, drained, as if racked by a terminal and cancerous pain.

“Kane! But he knows better. He knows-”

“Kane knows nothing, he acts like a foolish boy in the grips of his anger,” the cracking voice replied with a cough. “But I sent him away, back to the basement… It took… more than I expected.”

Dennis moved past Maria, ignoring the drenched, coughing woman. Instead, he moved to kneel before the corpse, his large, calloused hands stroking his mother’s cheek, tears rimming his eyes. “You know you can’t keep doing that, Mother. If you die-”

“If she dies, I die,” Mother rasped, and Maria knew that the black-hole-eyes were looking at her, into her. Hunger radiating from the darkened voids.

“You’re running out of time, Mother,” Dennis said, a tear breaking free to run down his cheek.

“Shhh,” Mother hissed. “Take her to her room. Now.”

Maria knew that she had heard more than Mother intended. She stifled a wicked smile, but tucked away that piece of knowledge. Mother was dying, and for some reason they needed her. It was a form of relief to Maria, albeit confusing and possibly more dangerous than before. At least she knew they could not kill her.

Dennis stood and looked to her, “Sorry, Missy. Get dressed, I will wait outside.”

“Get her a flannel,” Mother said. “One of yours. Girl, you leave your shirt where it lies.”

“Why?” Maria spat.

“Do as I say, girl! Or I will tell Dennis to punish you!”

Dennis flinched at the thought, but he did not contradict. Instead, he slunk from the room, rushing off down the hallways, his heavy boot steps echoing throughout the cavernous house.

Maria began to towel off, shivering as the cold air ran across her warm, wet skin. Gooseflesh rose along her arms and legs, and she trembled visibly, wrapping the towel tightly around her waist.

“I am sorry, girl,” Mother rasped. “Kane is – was – always a brute, but this… This was unacceptable. I promise, there will be… ramifications.”

“What was that?” Maria asked, a steel in her voice she hadn’t known was there.

“An offering, now a remnant. You needn’t concern yourself with him.” Mother fell silent, and something told Maria that their conversation had come to a close. Definitive, mystifying, damnably curious, but over.

She finished dressing in silence. When Dennis returned he offered her an over-large flannel shirt. She slid into it, noticing the distinct, foul-smelling musk that seemed to hang on Dennis had also clung to the shirt. Still, she buttoned it up and muttered a quick thanks.

He spoke, his voice near a whisper, “Are you ready?”

Maria shrugged, thinking, Sure, please take me back to my cell!

Dennis gestured for her to lead, and they made their return trip in silence. The entire way down the long, crumbling hallway, Maria could hear a third step of footfalls padding after them. Small feet, a child’s feet tiptoed along the creaking floorboards. She did not need to look, she knew that Jeb was following, his wild hair askew and a mischievous grin plastered to his youthful face, betrayed by ancient eyes.

 They reached her door and Dennis opened it, almost like a gentleman waiting on his lady. Maria entered, hugging herself tight, still trembling from her near-death experience.

Before the door closed fully, she heard Dennis whisper, “Run along, Jeb. You can’t play here.”

Small footsteps scampered off and the lock clicked in place. Once again, Maria found herself alone in a room full of ghosts.

Her eyes followed the ruined baseboards, setting on the loose panel. Curiosity returned, stronger than before. The question begged an answer, mice in the walls or not.

She stepped forward. 

Next Chapter: Part Three: Adjustment